Colbert’s Ordinance. 193 
time. As one of the historians (Joubain) puts it, “the 
commissioners did not recoil before long hours of in- 
spection nor high influence, they neither hesitated to 
declare against nor prosecute great and small alike, nor 
to pronounce a most serious sentence.” 
By this ordinance three special courts of adjudication 
in matters pertaining to the forests were established 
with special officers whose duties were carefully de- 
fined, namely the courts of the Gruries, of the Mait- 
rises and the Tables de Marbre. The first named 
lower grade courts took cognizance of the lesser 
offences, abuses, wastes and malversations, disputes 
in regard to fishing or chase, and murders arising 
out of these; gruries being the woods belonging to in- 
dividuals in which the jurisdiction and the profit from 
such jurisdiction belonged to the king, or at least to the 
seigneurs. The courts of the mattrise referred to the 
forest territory placed under administration of the 
maitres particuliers (Forstmeister) and were estab- 
lished near the many royal forests as courts of appeal in 
forest matters. A final appeal could be made to the 
tables de marbre (courts of the marble table) ,; which 
‘also decided on the more weighty questions of proprie- 
torship by whatever term held, and especially civil and 
criminal cases relating to the eaux et foréts; the wrong 
doings in the discharge of official duties (abus), con- 
traventions to the orders and regulations, misdemeanors 
or depredations (delit) ; and all kinds of fraud not in- 
cluded under those cited (malversations). 
The whole country was divided into 18 arrondisse- 
ments of grandes-maitrises des eaux et foréts and these 
were divided into 134 maitrises, each under a maitre par- 
